Christmas Already?

 

Luke 2:1-20

               Here we come once again to our Christmas in July service.  As you may remember, we celebrate Christmas in July as a time to step away from the deep commercialism that has taken over our Christmas and our Advent, in December.  Instead, we use this time to truly focus on what is behind our celebrations of Christmas, what the story has to tell us, what the message of Christmas is for people of faith.

               And what is that message?  It really comes down to one word.  And that one word is “Emmanuel” – God with us.  The Story of Christmas is a story that tells us that our God loves us so much that God wants to be with us, here in this place.  God wants to understand us in fullness, and through that understanding to have compassion, to offer grace, and to do whatever it takes to bring us healing, peace, and salvation (whatever that means to you). 

               This is incredible news for us.  It truly is.  During these very dark times when things are unsure, when even getting prescriptions is cost prohibitive, when inflation is so high that just daily living can be a challenge and something as basic as education seems to be a luxury, when we are becoming more and more divided as a country, when we are still dealing with a pandemic; finding good news, something to hang on to, can just feel beyond difficult.  But it is into this world that Jesus comes, that God comes to be with us.  At the time when Jesus was born, the Israelites were under intense oppression by the Romans.  They were struggling as a people and the Roman “punishment” for just about anything was crucifixion, a horrible nasty execution.  That is when Jesus came.  That is when Jesus showed up.  And he offered words of wisdom, he offered kindness, he offered healing, he offered compassion.  He offered grace.

On this day in July we celebrate Christmas.  And it is a joyous and wondrous thing that we celebrate.  But that doesn’t negate all the struggle or trauma that we also witness in this world.  This world is a messy, broken, tragic, and yes, beautiful place into which we have come, into which God comes.  On Christmas in July we remember that.  We remember the mess, but we also remember the beauty.  We remember God’s grace and God’s compassion, coming to us in the middle of this.  And we remember that our call is to follow Jesus: to be that voice of grace and compassion in the midst of the mess.

In the wonderful mystery story, Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, the main character, Lori, found a stranger, a dirty, disheveled stranger, passed out in her driveway.  She got him help, reluctantly.  She didn’t want to help.  She didn’t want her Christmas to be taken up by this homeless, disheveled, mess of a human being.  But she did it.  She did the thing that needed to be done, she dealt with the mess in the midst of a time when she only wanted to see the good, the beauty.  She got him help, she got him the medical help he needed, she researched to find out who he was and what his story was.  She helped him to get back on his feet, and in doing so, she helped him to remember who he was, to come into his own again.  Again, she didn’t want to do it.  But it was through helping him that she saw the truth of Christmas.  She found that the deepest gifts came in being that voice, in not denying what was ugly or mean or difficult, but in stepping into that pain and offering grace, offering healing, offering help.  It was through her stepping into the darkness, that she brought her own light, and God’s light into those dark places.  In lighting those dark places, she then saw the glory, the beauty of the cave that had been hidden before she brought her own light in.  The gifts that came back to her far exceeded what she had given to him.  She said, “He forced me to look at things I didn’t want to see, and remember things I wanted to forget.  If Kit hadn’t come to the cottage I wouldn’t have gone to St. Benedict’s (which included the homeless shelter).  And if I hadn’t gone to St Benedicts, I wouldn’t have realized how much I have in common with the homeless men there. …I fought it tooth and nail….I’d gotten too fat and sassy...  I’d paid my dues, so I thought I was entitled to my blessings.  Kit reminded me that blessings aren’t a right – they’re a gift.  I’m no more entitled to them than the homeless men, and I’m ashamed of myself for not remembering it sooner. “  Her choosing to help this stranger led her to gifts that were uncomfortable at first, but which deepened and strengthened her and made her more whole.

It is our job, it is our calling to bring God’s presence into the light, into a fullness that others can see.  It is our calling to bring that beauty, the innocence of a new born baby, the presence of God into fullness.  It is not always easy when things are going wrong, when we are struggling.  But that is the call that we have been given.

               So as we rejoice, as we celebrate Christmas now, here, in July, may we do so not from a place of denying what is wrong in the world, but instead with a commitment to be the bearers of the light into the world. 

               I think about Simon and Garfunkel’s version of “Silent Night.” Have you all heard it?  We will play it in a moment because it is powerful, deeply powerful.  These two Jewish men wrote a version of Silent Night that I think expresses the deepest truth.  It is into this broken, suffering, struggling world that God comes, that God shows up.  The contrast between the beauty of a newborn baby and the poverty into which he was born; the contrast of a beautiful newborn brought to a displaced couple, far from their homes, with no proper in-room in which to stay reflects the current contrast of God’s beauty in the midst of fires and climate change and pandemics: all of this is the story of Christmas.  All of this is the beauty of Christmas that we celebrate today.

               I invite you to listen as we play Simon and Garfunkel’s Silent Night.

 

               I want to end by reading you a piece of a story I shared with you many years ago now.  It is one of my favorite stories and so I share it with you again: from “It was on Fire when I lay down on it” by Robert Fulghum. (p 174).  (link here.)

               Merry Christmas to you all!

Peace I Leave You

 

John 14:25-31

               The passage that we heard from John today is part of Jesus’ speech on the night before he was killed.  Throughout his speech, throughout the evening, his disciples were asking questions about his “leaving” them.  First Peter, then Thomas, then Philip, then the other Judas (not Judas Iscariot)… all were worried, all were upset, and all were asking for clarity, for understanding about this upcoming death that Jesus told them would be coming.  They also bargained, denied, argued with Jesus about what was to come.  But Jesus was clear and firm.

               In the face of their concerns, their fears, their lack of understanding and their grief, then, Jesus’ response was repeatedly to tell them, in different ways, that they were not being abandoned.  He reassured them that he would remain with them through the Spirit, that his relationship with them, though different, would not be over.  He told them they did not need to be afraid, and he offered them his peace. 

               All of this caused me to think on our own experiences of loss and death.  When we know that someone we love and truly value is going to die, that someone is going to leave us, we, too, like the disciples feel fear, anxiety and pain.  As much as that person’s death is about them, and as much as we say we rejoice that they will no longer be in pain, that they are beyond suffering, or as much as we express concern for them at their dying, we also have our own fears, our own grief, and our own experiences and feelings that we must deal with.  Sometimes those can blind us to the pain of the person who is actually dying, actually leaving.  Sometimes it causes our focus to be very inward rather than outward.  Sometimes we even express those normal stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, as the disciples did with Jesus, before the event even happens.  And sometimes we require the person who is dying to do the comforting, as strange and as somehow backward as that must sound. 

               But this is very human, very normal.  None of the disciples comforted Jesus.  None of them even could stay awake with him when he needed them to be with him in his final hours of anxiety, grief and prayer.  No, instead, he was required to comfort them, to reassure them that his death was not the end of the relationship, that it would continue, though in a different way.  He would be with them through the Spirit’s presence, as he promised here.  And rather than focusing on his own feelings of loss, he was tasked with the job of comforting, reassuring, and holding those he loved in these his last moments with them.    

               But the peace that Jesus offers is much more than this.  This peace is not just absence of conflict.  It is also not a peace of simply having nothing to be upset about.  So what else does this peace entail?

First, It is a peace that includes forgiveness.  Just as, when we pass the peace in church, it is supposed to be a response to our prayer of confession and acceptance of God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, the peace that Jesus offers is one that is intended to relieve us from our shortcomings, from our failures, from our lack of wholeness.  It is, above all else, a peace of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. 

I found myself reminded of something Craig Barnes wrote, “Complaining is usually a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul. Since most people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external - like a church's music program. But it doesn't matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of their soul until they attend directly to it... (That is why) to be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioners' complaints about the church.”  So when Jesus offered peace, he was also offering a peace that called them to attend to their own issues of the soul.  These disciples, as we know, were very far from perfect.  They didn’t understand things, they weren’t always supportive.  And Jesus’ peace calls from them growth, calls them into a deeper understanding and commitment.  This is a peace that remembers our connection and that sends his disciples, therefore, out in mission, out to do the work of healing and caring for one another.

               That offer of peace, therefore, included his own offer to them of forgiveness as well, for their lack of support for him, for their lack of understanding, for anything they had failed to do and anything they had done that was less than loving, less than supportive.  His peace was a call on them to accept that forgiveness, and to strive to move into wholeness.  His peace, again, was a call towards their action of mission in the world, doing what they were called to do. 

               But peace is even more than this.  Bonhoeffer said it this way, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.” 

               As my bible study discussed this last week, it’s deeply connected to what Archbishop Elias Chacour talks about when he translates the Beattitudes.  Jesus “peace” is deeply connected to the “blessing” that he speaks of when he speaks the beatitudes.  To quote Archbisop Chacour, “Knowing Aramaic, the language of Jesus, has greatly enriched my understanding of Jesus’ teachings.  Because the Bible as we know it is a translation of a translation, we sometimes get a wrong impression.  For example, we are accustomed to hearing the Beatitudes expressed passively: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

‘Blessed’ is the translation of the word makarioi used in the Greek New Testament.  However, when I look further back to Jesus’ Aramaic, I find that the original word was ashray from the verb yashar.  Ashray does not have this passive quality to it at all.  Instead, it means ‘to set yourself on the right way for the right goal; to turn around, repent; to become straight or righteous’.

How could I go to a persecuted young man in a Palestinian refugee camp, for instance, and say, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted’, or ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’?  That man would revile me, saying neither I, nor my God understood his plight, and he would be right.

When I understand Jesus’ words in the Aramaic, I translate like this:

Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who are hungry and thirsty for justice, for you shall be satisfied.

Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you peacemakers, for you shall be called children of God.

To me this reflects Jesus’ words and teachings much more accurately.  I can hear him saying, ‘Get your hands dirty to build a human society for human beings; otherwise, others will torture and murder the poor, the voiceless, and the powerless’.  Christianity is not passive but active, energetic, alive, going beyond despair.”

               With this understanding, some might not be as interested in this peace that Jesus offers as they might have been a minute ago. 

               I am reminded of the article I shared with you last week from reader’s digest, about the boy who stole a wallet being helped by bar owner to retrieve what was lost.  He also gave the kid a home with his family and a job.  The owner of the wallet also forgave the boy.   This is what peace for the bar owner looked like: it looked like taking action, working for the wholeness and healing not only of himself, but for all those around him. 

               The peace of Christ is not just being content with your life.  Jesus was offering comfort, yes, but peace is far beyond that.  It is not just comfort.  It involves healing.  Healing from fear, healing from grief, healing from the terrible things that happen and that people suffer in this world.  But more, that healing, that gift of peace that is given to you, to me, to all of us: that healing is not just for you.  We are called to be carriers of that peace, to pass it along in our actions, in our work, in our very attitudes in the world.  We are called to be bearers of that peace.  To heal, to mend rifts, to work towards wholeness, for individuals and for the world. 

 

The Final Commandment

Exodus 20:17

Matthew 22:34-40

Today we hear what according to the Catholics are the last two commandments, and according to the Protestants is the last one.  Do not covet.  Do not covet your neighbor’s spouse, or house or objects, or anything else that you feel you do not have but that others do.  Do not be overtaken by a desire to have what you don’t have, avoid allowing that jealousy, that anger, that longing, that sense of injustice for what you see others have that is not your own to affect your behavior.  And under all of this, remember that ultimately what exists in the world that others may or may not have, that you may or may not have, that ultimately none of that truly belongs either to yourself or to your neighbor.  All that you covet, all that you long for, all that you have or do not have, ultimately is not ours to be had, because it all belongs to God.  

This commandment has been separated out by the narrative lectionary folk.  And it is separated out because those who wrote the narrative lectionary felt that ultimately this one “sin” of coveting, is the cause of every other sin or error or need for commandment that exists.  Those theological collaborators believe that all of our killing, all of our stealing, all of our lying and all of our idolatry comes down, ultimately to the sin of coveting, or, to use another word: greed. 

We see this in our Biblical stories in abundance.  David’s sins began with his coveting of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.   As king, he was already married, and he had access to many, many women in the palace.  But he wanted Bathsheba.  So he took her, even though she was married to Uriah who was away in battle.  And when she then became pregnant, he basically had Uriah (and as a result all of Uriah’s men) killed in battle.  Great sins: murder, betrayal, adultery, and probably rape (though Bathsheba’s perspective is not given in this story).  And all of it began with this greed, this coveting.  

Another example comes from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  The two of them desperately wanted Naboth’s vineyard.  Again, they had plenty of land.  They could buy more from anyone who would sell it.  But they wanted this particular piece of land.  And when Naboth would not sell it to them, they paid people to lie about Naboth, they then had Naboth killed as a “punishment” for those things they had paid others to say falsely about him, and they were able, then, to take the vineyard.  Again, many broken commandments: falsely testifying against a neighbor, murder, and theft being at the top of that list: but it all began with coveting a vineyard that someone else had.  

As the Sunday following the 4th of July, we also have to think about this, not just in terms of individuals but in terms of communities.  What do we covet for ourselves that we cannot stand other people having in the big picture?  And again, I’m not just talking about individuals here, but communities: and as countries.  For example, Oil?  

To quote Rolf Jacobson, one last time, “A friend of mine jokes about his own coveting heart, “If they make it, I want it.” I quoted that sentence one time while teaching about the coveting commandment at a church on a Sunday morning. One forgiven-sinner said, “Only one?”  The desires of our hearts will lead us astray. We are to love God. We are to love neighbor. We are not to desire our neighbor’s spouse or house.  And we cannot do it. Yes, we can develop all sorts of spiritual discipline and practices — prayer, meditation, service, fasting, accountability groups, and so on. These practices can help us curb the worst effects of our fallen nature. But we cannot do it.”

He continues, “… be aware of the incredible power of the heart’s desires. When you feel yourself desiring the wrong thing, pray. Call a friend and ask for help. Go see your pastor.”

But I also think that the things we struggle with go even deeper than greed.  I think our greed has an even deeper sin under it and that is our fear.  Our fear of not having enough, of not being enough.  Our fear of the end of our lives, or of suffering, or of meaninglessness.  And while “do not be afraid” is not one of the ten commandments, I would argue that perhaps the fact that that phrase alone shows up in scripture 365 times: once for every day of the year, is an indication of how important, how vital it is to our spiritual health.  

Each of the weeks that we have been discussing the ten commandments, we have also heard today’s passage from Matthew.  It’s because the ten commandments are summarized so well by these words in Matthew.  To remind you of what I told our Bible study when we began to look at the ten commandments, the ten commandments are found in two places in the Old Testament.  But they simply do not exist in the New Testament.  The closest we have is Jesus’ summation of those commandments here.  Ultimately the ten commandments can be summed up by the two: love the lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  And these can truly be summarized in one word.  Love.  That’s it.  Just Love.  If you aren’t sure what to do in a situation, always ask yourself, what is most loving.  If you aren’t sure which path to take in a decision, always ask yourself, what is most loving.  If you are torn between what you want and what the world needs, again, always ask yourself, what is most loving.

I think about the book, “Grasshopper on the Road” and in particular the story that I shared with the children this morning.  The grasshopper encounters a mosquito who is stuck in the rules.  He is so stuck in the rules, that he cannot see the absurdity of them at times.  In this particular case, his rule is that everyone must use his ferry boat to get across the “lake”.  It doesn’t matter to the mosquito that the grasshopper can easily step over the puddle.  The mosquito has a rule and that rule must be obeyed.  The grasshopper is too big for the boat, and yet still, the mosquito has his rule. Sometimes we, too, can get caught up in the rules and fail to see the deeper messages. 

What do we do, then, with this list of commandments.  How do we live faithfully with a list of things that are almost impossible, when we dig into them deeply, to uphold?  As we’ve seen, none of these ten commandments, as we’ve discussed them, are easy.  Not one.  For a myriad of reasons, not one of these is really simple.  Simply said, but multifaceted in execution.  Compelling, and apparently demanding, these are hard and the burden they hold feels tight.  But as always, the call is always to go deep.  To hear the message underneath.  And that message, always, is one of love.  It begins with God’s love for you, for me, for us.  And it is the nature of love to return to those who send it out.  

Going back to the story from Grasshopper on the Road: I think the message in this story is much less obvious than what we first read.  Because the hero in this story is not the mosquito.  The hero in the story is the grasshopper.  And he does not simply say, “That is ridiculous” and step over the puddle on his merry way.  He does not make fun of the mosquito’s limited vision or stuck thinking, as tempting as it might have been.  He doesn’t discount the mosquito, and he doesn’t avoid or ignore the mosquito.  Instead, he finds a way to support the mosquito, regardless of the mosquito’s great limitations of vision, insight and understanding.  Throughout the little book, in the other stories as well, we see that grasshopper has integrity, but also compassion.  He engages the others throughout the stories in the book, despite their limitations and inflexibilities, and he finds ways to be in relationship and to offer grace to them where they are.  He does not insist that they change. Neither does he give up who he is or what his call is in the world.  He approaches each as the individual they are, and he works within their world view still keeping his own integrity.  He acts with love.  He acts with the caring that is love.

That is our ultimate call: to return God’s love to the world, to the universe, in the best and fullest way that we can.  I’m reminded of the simple song I learned at Ygnacio Valley as a kid: Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away.  Love is something if you give it away.  You end up having more.  Love is like a magic penny, hold it tight and you won’t have any.  Lend it, spend it and you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor.  Oh, …

So I return in the end to where I started in the beginning of this series: all of these commandments begin with God’s relationship to us.  We are called to strive to follow them, not because they are an onerous burden God has placed around our neck, but because we are called to respond to God’s faithfulness with faithfulness of our own, lived out from gratitude and joy.  The good news in the commandments is that they are gifts to us, teaching us how to love with more fulness, with more purpose.  They are gifts to us as they help us to more to greater wholeness, and greater connection both with one another and with God.  Ultimately, the commandments begin with God’s relationship to us and they are a call for us to deepen in our relationships with God, self and others.  And that can only be a good thing.  Thanks be to God for God’s great love.  Amen.

The Next Five

 Exodus 20:12-16

Matthew 22:34-40

A person shared that she was traveling in Kenya and met a refugee from Zimbabwe. The refugee said he hadn't eaten anything in over 3 days and looked extremely skinny and unhealthy. The traveler offered him the rest of the sandwich she was eating. The first thing the refugee said was, "We can share it."

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, A 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.  A waitress put a glass of water in Front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked. "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and Studied the coins in it. "Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the Waitress was growing impatient.. "Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on The table and walked away The boy finished the ice Cream, paid the cashier and left..  When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table.  There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, Were two nickels and five pennies.. You see,  he couldn't  have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a Roadway.  Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.  Some of the King's' wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.  Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but no one did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.  Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road  After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.  

Today we hear the next five commandments, all of which focus on the call for us to love our neighbor.  To name them again.  Those are:

5. Honor father & mother 

6. Do not murder

7. Do not commit adultery

8. Do not steal

9. Do not bear false witness against a neighbor.

As with last week when we looked at the first four commandments and saw that each of them are much more deep and comprehensive than they may appear on the surface, the same is true of all of these next five commandments.  

To honor one’s mother and father, for example, is not just about avoiding sassing or backtalking one’s parents.  It is about remembering our parents’ journey, giving them credit for the challenges that they have walked, the struggles they have had.  It is about honoring their efforts, even when they were unsuccessful or did not do the job that we might have wanted them to do.  It is about learning from their journeys, taking the time to be grateful that they gave you life, even if and when they made mistakes as our parents.  It is about practicing kindness, even with those who drive us crazy at times and striving to do a better job of caring for them perhaps, than they did to care for us.  It also means remembering the parentage of the earth and honoring that as well by not using, abusing and pillaging her resources.  The earth, too, deserves our honor and our respect.

Similarly with avoiding murder.  Sounds so straight-forward doesn’t it?  But to avoid murdering is not just about not killing the good or innocent people.  It also extends to not killing those we would label as “bad” or even “guilty”.  It also extends beyond avoiding killing physical bodies.  It also extends to not killing the souls, and the spirits of those we encounter.  To not murder therefore calls us to strive always to be kind, and intentionally thoughtful about how we interact with other people. 

Similarly, to refrain from committing adultery is not just about not sleeping with someone when it is going against the commitments you have made to your spouses/partners.  It is not just about sex.  It is about being honest, faithful, and intentional about keeping your promises and commitments in all of your relationships.

Do not steal is not just about avoiding taking things from those around you.  There are so many ways in which we steal.  When we do not pay people fairly for their time, we are stealing from them.  When we deprive people of privileges we keep for ourselves and our loved ones, we are stealing from them.  When we rob people of their dignity, their humanity, their sense of self, we use that word “rob” for a reason.  It is stealing, and it is against the ten commandments.  When we waste people’s time, we are stealing time from them.  When we toy with people’s affections, we are stealing love from them.  When we falsely use someone or lie to someone, we are stealing away their trust.  This, too, requires from us so much more intentionality than we may think.  It means being aware of where you buy things so that you are not part of a system that is stealing from people by not paying them what their efforts are worth.  It means being aware of how what you do supports those who steal more and more for themselves at the expense of the poor.  It means being kind in all our interactions as well.  And to take this a step further, it also means being aware, and working to avoid, stealing from the earth as well. The earth is not here for us to rape and pillage.  It is our mother, someone to be in relationship with, someone to avoid stealing from.

And finally, for today, we hear “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  This, too, is more than it appears on the surface.  This is not just about avoiding intentionally lying about other people.  This is about avoiding gossip all together.  Because whatever we share about another person is false.  I want to say that again, everything that we share about another person is false.  It is incomplete at the least, and false at the most.  I want you to think about this from the perspective of someone other people have talked about for a minute.  I want you to think back on what you’ve heard other people say about you.  Has it ever been accurate?  Has it ever fully captured what you actually said, what you actually meant, what you actually thought, felt, intended?  No, it never has and it never will.  So to “avoid bearing false witness against your neighbor” means, at the basest level, the most complete level, it means avoiding talking about your neighbors at all.

Whew!  So are these any easier than the ones we discussed last week?  

These are HARD.  And we haven’t even finished the list.  There is one more commandment out there that we will discuss next week.  It gets its own special place as the last commandment and as the summary piece.  But for today, let us just note, once more, than not one of these is simple.  Not one of these is single faceted or just straightforward.  And not one of them is easy to do.

Breathe.

To quote Rolf Jacobson once more, “The purpose of the law is not “your best life now,” but rather “your neighbor’s best life now.” Because we are stuck in this fallen condition called sin, and because we are going to remain stuck in this condition until God unweaves all the fibers of creation and then reknits them in the new creation, God says to us, “For as long as you’re here in this condition, love your neighbor.” We respond, “OK, God, we’re down with love. But, how do I love my neighbor?” God says, “OK, let me be a little more explicit here. Make sure everyone gets one day off each week, take care of the elderly, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t have sex with someone else’s spouse, don’t hurt your neighbor with your words, don’t desire your neighbor’s stuff. That’s how you love your neighbor.”  Because the law isn’t about you. It’s about your neighbor. And God loves your neighbor so much that God gives you the law. And God loves you so much, that God gives your neighbor the exact same law.  In other words, in the second table of the Decalogue we find good news. Good news for free people. Good news for those we need help from a neighbor.” 

And let me just say, that is all of us.  We all need help from our neighbors.  We all need connection and relationship and value from and for our neighbors.  And we all struggle to find the best way to be the best neighbors to one another.  So, we’ve been given this handy guide, this “how to” for caring for one another that God has given us.  All that easy.  All that hard.  There is more good news here too: we are all on this journey together, all striving and working to do better, be better, connect better.  We have this chance to walk it together and to grow and learn more fully.  It is never too late to grow, we are never too old to strive harder to love more fully.  And in that loving we will encounter God more fully.  Because God is in the relationships and God is in the loving.  God is in the growing and God is in the connecting.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

The First Four

 Exodus 20:3-11

Matthew 22:34-40

Today we hear the first four commandments.  As I mentioned last week, the first four of these relate to our relationship with God. 

To name them again: 

1.  Put God first (ie don’t have other god’s before God).

2. Do not make an idol for yourself. Or “no graven images”.

3.  Do not misuse God’s name.

4.  Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

The truth is that we could spend a week or more, easily, on each one of these.  When we had our series on spiritual disciplines we spent one week, for example, on the discipline of Sabbath, or the importance of rest, as well as the importance of intentional time with God. None the less, today we will be looking at these first four commandments together.

All of these have to do with our relationship with God.  And they all call us to move in our attention, concern and obsessions with earthly things into a full and complete attention to God.  The first two of these commandments in many ways are the same thing, said differently.  First, we need to put God above all else, and second, we need to avoid making idols of things other than God.  What does it mean to you that you should avoid making idols, or graven images, for yourself?

When we think of idols, we often think of other gods.  When we think of “graven images” we often think of icons, which, as you may notice, are absent in the Presbyterian church.  This was one of the changes that Calvin and Zwingly brought in the Protestant reformation for Presbyterians: they had a strong belief that any image, or icon, would be distracting from the reality of the divinity because they would set before humans an image, an incomplete and distorted image, of what God really is.  I think they probably took this too far, but I do understand that we often mix up a concept with a limited or specific thing.  We often do this, right?  On this Juneteenth Sunday, we can see this..  people might have one encounter with a person who is different from themselves and then they categorize every person who is similar in one way as the same in every way.  Very dangerous thinking which Calvin and Zwingly were trying to avoid.  If you have an image of Jesus and he is white, you assume Jesus is white, which, by the way, he was NOT.  So to avoid this, they banned and prohibited any image of Jesus, in particular, from being present in the church.  

   But what I want to say to you today is that the reality is that we have many, many idols in this country, AND many graven images: things that we put before God all the time, images that we uphold an believe to be truth, much more than God.  Wealth, power, fame are some of the idols.  Appearance is another.  Nationalism.  And there are so very many graven images that go with along with those things.  But there are other things, things we don’t want to see as idols, but none the less these are things that we often, if not always, put before God: our comfort, our safety, our families, our families’ safety and comfort.  I want you to think about this for a minute.  When we are willing to defend our own lives at the cost of others’ lives, that is putting the idol of safety above the call of God to not kill.  We have failed to live up to Jesus’ call in those moments to love even our enemies as ourselves.  We have failed to remember that even that other, even that person we would like to label as a “bad guy” is also a child of God.  When we forget this, when we put our own safety above the rules of God, when we make idols of our very LIVES, we are being idolatrous, we are breaking these first two commandments.  We are called to love God more; more than all these, more even than our families, more even than ourselves.  We are called to love God so much that we are willing, like Jesus, to risk our very lives to love God, serve God, and care for ALL of God’s people.  We are called to honor God by not putting our desires, our fears, our hopes, our sorrows even, above God.  

I think of the movie “A Few Good Men” in which the marines were told to repeat their loyalty mantra.  They did so and it was:  “Unit, Core, God, Country”.  In this case they’ve put two things above God: their unit and their core.  But also, again, they did so in the name of bigger idols: safety, nationalism, the idolatry of certain political systems.  All of these are ways of breaking the first two commandments.  We are called to put God first.  Above it all.  

So, is it hard then to follow these two commandments?  Yes.  Very.  This commandment calls from us all that we are, all that we have, in the service of love towards those we fear, those we hate, those we call “enemies.”  A very, very difficult commandment.

Then we come to the third commandment.  And on the surface, it sounds so easy.  It tells us that when we call on God’s name, it should be in reverence and with intentionality.  We should NEVER use God’s name to hurt or curse others.  But while that begins by not swearing or “taking God’s name in vain” in the traditional sense of damning another, it extends far beyond that.  Not taking God’s name in vain ultimately means not using the name of God to further the actions that satisfy, build up and support only ourselves and those who look like us, believe like us, are “haves” like we are.  It means not using the name of God to justify violence, oppression, injustice, or greed.  It means not using the name of God to take from others for our own gain.  It means not using the name of God to justify anything that harms even one of God’s children. Not “taking the name of God in vain” sounds like such a simple thing, but in fact it is not.  It, too, is actually extremely difficult.  

And then we come to the Sabbath law.  I actually think the call to Sabbath is probably the easiest of the ten commandments.  All it asks of us is that we take a day, each week, to rest, to remember God, to honor God.  And yet, even this, we usually find impossible to do.  And perhaps it is because we don’t take it very seriously.  I mean, why should we take a sabbath when others are working so hard all the time?  Here, where we really deeply value the “protestant work ethic”, the idea of REST is daunting.  I know it is for me.  I feel like I’m failing my world, my family, if I take time to rest.  I feel like I’m lazy if I rest.  There is so rarely a day that someone does not ask me to do something for them.  If no-one in the church is asking for work from me, then my parents, or my kids are.  And how can I say “no” on those days?  How can I say to them, “this is my day of rest.  I am not doing that work for you today.  I am resting.”  I also feel like I’m WASTING my time if I am not actively contributing to the world.  One whole day a week?  Sounds ludicrous to me.  And yet, it is a commandment, and probably the easiest one of all of these to follow.  

So then the greater question perhaps is, what does that have to do with our relationships with God?  It is to be a day of rest, yes.  But it is also a day to remember then the God who gave us rest, to worship.  And the call for Sabbath is a call to make sure that all people also have these days of rest to honor, remember, celebrate and give thanks for the gifts of life that God has given us. Remember that the Sabbath was not just for heads of households but also the poor, slaves and even animals were to take the day as rest.  It is an act of justice as well as an act of praise to honor the Sabbath.  Again, as Rolf Jacobson said it, “The reason we keep the Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy, is that our people used to know what life was like when we had a lord named Pharaoh who did not allow days off. Put yourselves in the feet of the Exodus generation. For years they served Pharaoh, a burdensome master who gave no days off and when complaints arose, who said, “Now make bricks without straw.” God graciously intruded into that reality and said to the people, “You will no longer serve Pharaoh, you will serve me. And to serve me means that once every seven days, you, your kids, your workers, even your animals get the day off.” Why? Because God’s gracious intrusion into human existence was not a one-time event, but a regular, ritualized reality.”  

This law actually extends far beyond the one day a week as well.  In Old Testament law, once every seven years the land is to be given a rest.  Once every seven years all debts are to be forgiven.  Think about that for a moment.  Whether you are someone who is owed money or someone who owes, that is huge.  That is huge.  All debts erased.  All people beginning again.  That house mortgage?  Gone in seven years!  That car loan?  Your student loans?  All erased in seven years!  Also every seven years all who “sold themselves to you as slaves” were to go free.  Leviticus 25:40 says about slaves, “They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you”.  And every seven times seven years, all land was to return to its original family.  As Leviticus 25 said it, “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.  Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”  All of these laws were to make sure that the rich did not grow richer at the expense of the poor, that all truly had equal opportunities, and that everyone had the chance to begin again.  Every seven years, everything was to be reset.  The true equalizer.  And Sabbath, then, was not just about a day a week.  It was about a way of life: a way of being in relationship to God and to one another.  I believe, truly, that Sabbath, at least the one day a week part of Sabbath is the easiest of the commandments.  It is a call for taking time off, it is a call for rest.  And yet, as I’ve just pointed out, we don’t even follow this commandment.  We don’t EVEN follow this, the easiest of the commandments we are given.

I want to point out the obvious here.  Although we separate the commandments into “those that talk about our relationship to God” and “Those that address our relationships with others” and perhaps the Sabbath commandment might be seen as “the one that addresses our relationships with ourselves: calling us to act in a way that is caring and healthy for our very selves, that these separations: God, ourselves, others: these are, in so many ways, false divisions.  What serves God the most, what expresses the most love to God is caring for God’s people (including ourselves), and I would add, is caring for God’s creation.  And, if we really, truly and deeply love God and are in a true and deep relationship WITH God, we will also find ourselves automatically acting with greater and greater kindness, openness and care for ourselves and for one another.  The deeper into our faith we go, the deeper we connect with God, the more we will find ourselves acting with grace, compassion and love towards all creation.  It will be automatic.  Out of love for God, I will see God in you, I will see God in me, and I will do everything I can to serve God through my care for you and for myself.

So where is the good news in this?  The Good News is the same as what I mentioned last week.  These commandments, and I have to say, I really hate that word, are not meant to be burdens.  They are not a YOKE around your neck.  They are an invitation to respond out of gratitude to the God who loved you into being, and loves you into each and every day.  We are not asked to do all of this as a punishment, or as a weight of slavery around our necks.  We are called to respond out of joy and gratitude to the God who loves us by caring for God’s creation, God’s people in the most loving ways we can.  The good news then is that even when we mess up, we are still loved into our relationships with God and one another.  Even when we don’t follow these commandments, we are still loved into each day.  The Good News is that it all STARTS with God, it starts with God calling us into relationship, it starts with God creating and connecting with us.  And God does not tire of offering us opportunities to connect in return through our love for God and for one another.  I want to say that again.  God does not tire of offering us opportunities to connect in return through our love for God and love for one another.  

The invitation then is to return to these guidelines and these calls for us to love God, self and one another.  And to trust in God’s deep love for us, no matter what we do or fail to do, how we err or how we succeed in love.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.